REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The National Police Leadership has told police personnel that permission for leave will not be granted until all stages of the 2014 presidential elections are completed.
"Police personnel should remain in their units and may not take days off," Chief of the Jakarta Police's Public Relations Affairs Senior Commissioner Rikwanto said here on Tuesday.
Rikwanto said that the decision had been taken because the National Police Headquarters had instructed all personnel to be on alert in order to maintain security during the implementation of the presidential elections.
The National Police has announced an alert level one so that the police personnel will remain in their respective units beginning Monday, July 6, 2014, until the lifting of the status after the July 9 presidential election.
Rikwanto explained that police personnel had to be on standby in their units so they can be easily deployed whenever there is an escalation of security disturbance.
Head of Police's Security Maintenance Commissioner General Putut Eko Bayuseno said that all police personnel at the subdistrict, district, and provincial levels across the country must be on full alert and standby.
The Jakarta Police will deploy around 22,101 police personnel--assisted by 7,300 military soldiers and 65,820 civilian guards--to guard 32,910 polling stations in Jakarta.
Rikwanto said last week that the Jakarta Metropolitan Police will deploy around 30 thousand personnel to secure the presidential election in the capital.
The personnel will also supervise the distribution of ballot papers to polling stations in the capital, Rikwanto said here on Wednesday.
The polling stations will be secured a day ahead of the election on July 9, he said.
During the three-day cooling off period, the personnel will assist Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) in removing campaign attributes, he said.
The General Elections Commission (KPU) has organized a presidential campaign during the period June 7-July 5, for the presidential elections on Wednesday, July 9, 2014.
A total of 190,307,134 eligible voters have been registered by the KPU, consisting of 188,268,423 voters at home and 2,038,711 overseas.
Of the total, 95,220,799 are male and 95,086,335 are female.
The Indonesian elections will be contested by two pairs: Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa and Joko Widodo (Jokowi)-Jusuf Kalla.
Prabowo Subianto is a retired military general and the founder of the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), while his running mate, Hatta Rajasa, is a former coordinating minister for economic affairs and the chairman of the National Mandate Party (PAN).
Jokowi is Jakarta's governor and a cadre of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), while his running mate, Jusuf Kalla, is a former vice president and a senior politician of the Golkar Party.
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